ESG is central to Shard Credit Partners’ investment strategy, we believe it goes beyond simply integrating ESG into the investment process – we aim to be best in class in this important area.
Shard Credit Partners seeks out investments around three key themes, investing in businesses that:
- Promote female entrepreneurship, ownership and board representation/mixed-sex company ownership and boards and which actively encourage employee diversity;
- Are actively involved in or supporting trends in decarbonisation of the UK’s power supply or energy grid;
- Are making a positive impact on people and the planet through adoption of ethical business behaviours.
Not every single investment ticks every box – however, each investment must strongly adhere to at least one and ideally, two of the above referenced themes.
Shard Credit Partners is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (“UNPRI”)
Investing in Women Code
Shard Credit Partners was an early mover in the adoption of ESG covenants into our term sheets and financing documentation.
This has developed over time to include the use of ESG margin ratchets, giving a clear financial incentive to our borrowers to proactively implement gender diversity in their boards and in their equity ownership.
As a result of this focus on gender diversity in our portfolio, we have developed a direct lending portfolio in which more than 90.9% of our borrowers have at least one female board member and two-thirds of our borrowers have some female equity ownership. Currently 28.5% of our borrowers have a female CEO.
In many cases this is a direct result of our use of ESG covenants and ESG margin ratchets in the early stages of a transaction.
Shard Credit Partners is a signatory to the Investing in Women Code.
